Thursday, 25 August 2011

It's a bit of a cawl, me thinks.

Well, what is the national dish of Wales? Is it cawl, laver-bread and cockles, Welsh rarebit, Welsh cakes or none of these? Well, the answer is none of these if a petition that was handed in at the Senedd, today, has its way. For the petition extols the virtues of the Corn beef pasty.

Now quite why anyone should think that the Welsh Assembly should be able to pronounce on what our national dish should be is another question, it wasn’t part of the referendum debate as I recall and surely something as important would have been brought to our attention.

But two Conservative Assembly Members broke off from their holidays to accept the petition. So it must be important then, don’t you think?

Over two thousand people have already signed the petition and it has not even been seen in some parts of Wales yet. The aim of the organisers is to get over ten thousand names.

Quite what that will prove your guess is as good as mine, but there you have it.

Now this is a good silly season story and is likely to make the running in our media. Indeed it has already taken a bit of time on the morning radio programmes already. After all we’d much rather talk about this than the fall of Tripoli. And it will undoubtedly generate some column inches and airtime again.

These kinds of questions always stimulate interest and sometimes some heat. Who can forget the very heavy debate on who was the most famous Welsh person. It finally came down to a contest between Owain Glyndwr and Nye Bevan. If memory serves me right Nye Bevan won but at the time accusations of foul play, dirty tricks and general skulduggery were flying around. As if it mattered.

Now this current debate has been generated by Peter Foods, who yes, you’ve guessed it, produce, Corn Beef pasties. Well what a surprise there then. But who can blame their marketing department for trying, for that’s what marketing departments do.

If any blame is attached it is a to the media for running with such a stupid debate or to the politicians that accept such silly and frivolous petitions.

It is sad that this kind of debate generates more public interest than political issues that affect the lives of those living in Wales.

Of course, if anyone wants to comment on what should be our national dish their remarks will not be censored. I can’t believe I just wrote that!

I feel a constitutional crisis coming on. If the petition is formally presented to the National Assembly's Petitions Committee, then they may refer it to the Environment and Sustainability Committee for consideration and action. Might this lead to an internal constitutional crisis for Members as they are called upon to consume quantitites of alleged 'national dishes' with unpredictable consequences? Surely diversity is the life of Welsh food, not a monoculture, I opine!